Yes please
Candybar phone with a physical numberpad that plays MP3s? Why has it taken so long? I really truly want one of these things.
Microsoft's Nokia division has revealed its latest mobile phone – but rather than the sort of high-end flagship number that's designed to take on Apple, it's taking aim squarely at the bottom of the market. It's no less than a plastic mini-mobe that will sell for no more than €19 ($25) before taxes and subsidies. Billed in …
I had a Nokia 5310, it was a great phone and fantastically thin. I would have bought another when it died, but I judged it too expensive for an old phone that did have a few limitations.
Instead I replaced it with a Nokia C1-01 pretty much the same features but thicker and only £20.
When my current phone dies I might look at this new Nokia 130.
Let's not forget the Motorola ROKR, not matter how much Motorola and Apple might like us to. There were quite a few MP3 apps for Series 60 phones too, so you could rehabilitate your old Nokia 7650 if you really wanted. It's a slider though, so I guess something a little later like the 6600 would be more relevant?
Except it's 2G only and in some countries operators can change existing 2G spectrum to 3G use with only 6 months notice to regulator.
There are cheap phones sold even in Europe that are similar, but without the video (pointless?) and MP3 (definitely needed). Sadly they are all 2G only.
My wife has a cheap Samsung flip phone that, with tax, is €24, and, while it isn't an mp3 player, does an adequate job. Is this pitched as a phone or a cheap mp3 player? I'm not sure that this will convince anyone to buy it, especially as you have to provide your own sd card.
Additionally, from my experience, the earphones provided by nokia stink. I have ones that came with my considerably more expensive lumia that stink - tinny as hell and uncomfortable. I doubt if they have provided any better with this.
Lost all faith,
I'm pretty sure it's true. Part of the deal was that MS licenced Nokia's patents for 10 years or so, and the name for 2 years I think. They only get to keep the Lumia brand permanently, and so will have to change over to that.
This gives Nokia the ability to go back to producing phones in future, should they choose to. Although I can't see why they'd bother, having only just managed to dump their phone division.
MS bought Nokia because no one was buying WinPhones. Kids use smartphones & tablets in preference to a laptop/pc. MS realise the next generation of IT users/buyers will be smartphone/tablet users. Most PhartSmones and Tablets are either IOS(Apple) or Android(Google).
ARM is moving into the commercial server space and domestic IT (read smart TVs) and with ARM usually comes Linux in the form of Android.
So not only is MS not getting a seat at the Tablet/SmartPhone party, but (more importantly to MS) they see that the future IT-buying-decision-makers have all been brought up (from childhood) with non-MS tech. So why would they buy Windows when Android/Linux/IOS is already familiar and plenty good enough.
MS _HAD_ to buy Nokia or risk becoming a distant memory in 5 or 10 years time - that may still happen if kids continue to not buy Nokia WinPhones. So - if you are concerned about the future of IT in its present Wintel form, buy your 2 year old a Win8 Tablet ;-)
Look at Whackypedia or the news articles at the time of the sale. It's all very well thought out, on Nokia Oyj's behalf - MS have till the end of 2015 to drop Nokia from their Windows Phone and Asha ranges so they'll be stuck with selling Microsoft Lumias or just Lumias. Meanwhile they can carry on with the dumbphone business for 10 years but they must keep the Nokia name, ready for Nokia Oyj to pick it back up where they left off if they want to.
Normally I'd be livid to be singled out in such a patronising way if I'd been born in one of these countries. However this actually looks like something I'd snap up in an instant because of its' "who cares if it gets lost or nicked at this price" virtues. Having commuted with a tablet that I would seriously mind losing for a good while now, but is used for 95% as an expensive MP3 player I'd be straight down to the shops to snap one of these up at this price. So, more sales lost to you MS.....
"because of its' "who cares if it gets lost or nicked at this price" virtues."
It may not seem quite that cheap to the potential customers in the target markets. Yeah, a few quid here and there means nothing to us rich westerners, but in many cases, the target market are people where that may mean a week or a months wages. Would you treat a phone costing that much as a throwaway?
I doubt that it would last long if you use it as a music player; driving the earpieces will use lots of battery charge. Similarly, using it as a phone but not even making calls would drain the battery, probably within a week or maybe two if you're lucky.
My smartphones have always lasted about 5 days between charges (HTC Wildfire then Incredible and now a Nexus 4). I have WiFi on all day at home but I don't make many calls and I don't use GPS or Bluetooth and I don't play music on it and I hardly ever use mobile data. I also put it in airplane mode when I go to bed. I can only assume that you do all those things all at the same time.
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I use it mostly as a miniature tablet, mainly via WiFi. On walks and visits I use the camera and then the installed FTP client can shovel the pictures to my home networked FTP server. It has Dropbox and GDrive clients installed on in and an email client and a GoogleCalendar app. It's amazing what a modern smart'phone' can do.
This is the perfect phone for NURSERY WORKERS.
Following all the paranoia from certain sex abuse cases, we arent allowed to have our phones switched on at work - in case we take abusive photos of the kiddies; so a camera-less phone like this would be ideal for being contactable in a family emergency.
(The landline is a no-no as the manager is always hogging it)
Mines the one with crayon on the back, and baby-sick on the shoulder.
What is the perfect phone to bludgeon to death the people at the Daily Mail and the like who have created poisonous paranoia around anybody who works with children, when the evidence is that the offenders seem far more often to be people in authority, or celebrities? (And yes, I have enhanced DBS certificates.)
I'd nominate my first ever Nokia, which would have made a handy club if there had been phone thieves in those days.
If I even thought of giving a PoS like this to my kids I'd probably find I had just been reported to Social Services for abuse and neglect soon after they had opened the box. Have no problem with the Bill Gates Fan Club buying whatever they want - just don't expect me to buy the sort of garbage Microsoft are outputting these days.
there probably still is more J2M Software out there than software written for Windows Phone.
Not so sure about that these days. In any case the Windows Phone software is likely to be more useful and usable: less limiting environment. So it is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison.
@MacroRodent :
If you look at the pie chart here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/04/android_beats_ios_for_first_time/ (down in the noise admittedly) you see J2ME hanging in at double the share of Windows .
>In any case the Windows Phone software is likely to be more useful and usable: less limiting environment
There's a certain irony here - the Operators were terrified of wild apps running on their networks so severly constrained what the J2ME APIS were allowed to do. Then they complained about the restrictions and how wonderful Android was with its unfettered APIs. Ho hum.
Here in Finland (generally an expensive country), shops frequently advertise bottom-end Nokia or Samsung dumphones for around 25 € (and no carrier locking). Now if the price for the new Nokia had been below 10 €, that would have been interesting, and could really have created new classes of customers.
Before some idiot youngun' jumps in with the usual nonsense, let's squash the notion that "Old People" will need and/or want this phone.
Us old folks have been using computers since before you were alive, and are very happy with out latest iPhone or Android device. Although less so with my BlackBerry Z10...
Just because we're old enough to remember Zmodem and WinFax doesn't mean we're technological illiterates.
"Quit the generalisations and focus on the feature set. It finds a market"
Cobblers. Market segmentation is generalisation in practice. If you focus on the feature set you end up with differentiated offers like Nokia and Blackberry, where after initial success the customers just melted away.
I upvoted you for you speak the truth. I first saw a computer in the early 1960s and have worked with them until I retired. However my taste in phones is not now supported. With little chance to get out of the house for long periods due to carer duties dealing with my children I have no need of an all singing and dancing phone. I need voice, text, long battery life yes, one touch voice calling with a headset like the 6320i yes. Internet and music are useless for me, though I do not begrudge those who need to options that are baggage for me.
I have found the market split between super phones at the top and nothing much phones at the bottom has almost cut me out.
It was interesting to see others display a range of needs that also do not fit the current marketer's dreams of heaven. Frankly this is a useful contribution at the lower end - the dual SIM idea is useful for those areas that are not spots for some networks when continued contact is vital - see above for reasons.
Note I have rational reasons for my needs as do others, we do not seek to restrict others, please do not restrict us to phones that are hardly as useful as a public call office.
"And the van to drive your text message on punched cards over to the house of the recipient?"
Nah, card reader -> paper tape -> Paper tape reader on Telex Terminal set to 'Net' -> Message echoed to as many other Telexes as are connected to the same 'Net'.
My successful (apparently!) birth was apparently announced in several time zones using a similar technique but without the punched cards (late 1950s). Mum's best friend was a Telex operator.
PS: the people who are always nagging me to get on Facebook are the cousins over 70. Us young 'uns have reservations.
"PS: the people who are always nagging me to get on Facebook are the cousins over 70. Us young 'uns have reservations."
Yeah, the over 70's still trust "the state" and big reputable corporations. The under 30's have no concept of privacy. Us inbetweeners don't trust this new fangled social meeja and cloud stuff ;-)
Finally a phone that responds to my needs - making and receiving calls, and doesn't need to be recharged every single day.
I hate smartphones with a passion, but I have to use one for business purposes.
Once I retire, that is the kind of phone I want. Just give it a contact list that has more than 12 slots and I'll be happy.
I'm pretty sure this is a clever move. Probably something that Nokia had in the pipeline, and the sale included the rights to brand it as Nokia.
Ideal for people who want a simple phone, or to use one where a smartphone would be frowned upon.
What is the betting that the numbers of phones sold won't be broken down into dumb and smart phones, in their sales reports?
Get the Dual Sim Load it up with a microSD full of music Talking Books or the podcasts of choice for the beach, Fm Radio for the airport, or a day at Silverstone.
The perfect Holday Phone NO Emails NO Video NO camera to stop you enjoying your Hols Live..
Where Do I sign ....
The perfect holiday phone.
Can listen to tunes while travelling, can take it out and about without worrying about keeping it charged. I'm happy to leave the smartphone at home and go offline for a week or so, but still have something that lets me keep in touch by voice...and if it gets lost or stolen then I've lost £20-worth of hardware rather than £££££-s-worth of smartphone
I often used my old clam shell's built in voice recorder to make notes. Open it with one hand, dial #34, speak, stop. My posh Samsung S3 has a recorder too, involving lengthy menu navigation using both eyes, both hands and brain to focus on a screen you can't see in sunlight. Never use it. Smart phones went to far in giving up hard keys altogether.
Oh and sound play back is speaker only, so no privacy in a quiet, open office. Progress!
Wonder if "Nokia" is doing the old Ringo trick? Released a dirt-cheap phone for 1G networks (NMT system - one radio transceiver in the base station for each connection!) maybe to breathe a bit more time in the old analog system. Nokia made infrastructure for it.
When I was at Nokia in mid-200's we were told by Sari Baldauf no less that 2G was expected to be extinct by 2010. Well, that might be the plan in Europe to phase it out soon - hence the phone not available in Europe, but in the countries mentioned in the article, maybe there's still seen life in the old dog, yet...
Not even 3G? I'm just surprised, some networks already are going 3G-only.
3 of course was built out 3G-only; AT&T has areas where they had to turn off all GSM to run one 3G channel, so they did (in those areas); some of the Canadian carriers went directly from CDMA+EVDO to "GSM path", but to HSPA (no GSM whatsoever.) US and Canada use different bands but excluding those I would hope for 1800/1900 GSM+3G and 2100 3G.
Otherwise, having a phone that plays music and makes calls for a low price, it's not glamorous but it should sell phones.
In VietNam and Cambodia parents give children far more latitude to 'do their thing', as is used to be before Nannies took over governing Britain or the USA. When I was young, I and my brothers roamed all over the area centred on the BBC transmitter at Brookmans Park and was measured in miles.
We often left the house early in the day only to return late in the afternoon when our stomachs were calling.
So it is today in Indochina. My daughter is free to go wherever she wishes in Ban Ma Thuot, Central Highlands, VietNam, a city of 1-million souls, with her Mother and I completely free of worry.
The secret is the cell handset. She can call when she wishes as can we.
The problem with today's handsets is the ease of dialling long distance/international calls. Providing a short, owner-entered, authorised calling numbers would add enormously to the value of this Nokia product.
Remember, in a country where the minimum wage is USD$50 per month, even a $25 Nokia dumb-phone represents a sizeable hit on a families budget.